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James William Chichetto
James William Chichetto (born 1941) is an American poet, artist, and academic, and a Catholic priest of the Congregation of the Holy Cross. Life Chichetto was born in 1941 in Boston, Massachusetts, and grew up in the Berkshires.Ursula M. Niebuhr, "Calvary and Auschwitz," BERKSHIRE EAGLE, March 18, 1978. He graduated from Stonehill College and studied theology at Holy Cross College in Washington, D.C., whose faculty later became part of the Theology Department at the University of Notre Dame.University of Notre Dame He did further graduate studies at Catholic University, Chicago University, and Wesleyan University. Following his ordination, Chichetto worked in Peru for four years before getting ill, which experience he recounts in a novel, Lazaro. He is a professor of Communications at Stonehill College. His work has been published over 300 times, in publications that include the Manhattan Review, Boston Globe, Commonweal, Boston Phoenix, Colorado Review, America, and London Tablet, and anthologies including the Anthology of Magazine Verse and Yearbook of American Poetry, Blood to Remember: American Poets on the Holocaust, and the Native American Anthology. He is the author of several books of poems, most notably a 12,000-line epic poem entitled, The Dream of Norumbega: An epic poem on the United States of America. It includes the deeds of several American historical characters, including Captain John Smith, General Winfield Scott, and George Washington. To date, 3 volumes of the work (to be issued incrementally) have been published. Poet and critic Robert Peters, who has reviewed Chichetto's earlier works, called The Dream a contemporary masterpiece.Blurb on THE DREAM OF NORUMBEGA, Vol. 2. See also the Register of Robert Peters Papers, 1960-2005, "James Chichetto, 2002-2004," Mandeville Speical Collection Library, Geisel Library, University of California, Dan Diego "He has taken the 'voice portrait genre' by Peters to new directions," notes Peters.Robert Peters, "Voice Portrait," THE SMALL PRESS REVIEW, Vol. 26, No. 1, Jan. 1994, 1. Writing Dan Carr, poet and editor (Golgonooza Letter and Foundry Press) and one of his first publishers (Stones, A Litany), notes how Chichetto's poems are "well crafted and strong," especially in regard to their "lyrical power" and "elegiac sympathy" for the exploited and defeated. He also notes that his longest poem, "Stones, A Litany," about the great stones of Cuzco, Peru, has "been performed successfully with music."Dan Carr, abstract on Stones, A Litany, Four Zoas Night House Ltd (Boston: Four Zoas Night House, 1980), 2. Edwin Honig, poet, playwright, and professor emeritus (Brown University), says this about his earlier work, Victims: "This is an impressive selection of work by a vigorous young talent....Evocations of Sitting Bull and Herman Melville spin from Chichetto's mind -- a stark energy fuses with his special tenderness. Chichetto's forms are varied and skilled....I will watch for more of his work."Edwin Honig, blurb on Victims, book cover. Also see original manuscript with Honig's suggestions and commentary at Holy Cross Archives, Stonehill College, North Easton, Mass. George Klawitter, poet, critic, and professor (St. Edward's University), says this about his Homage to Father Edward Sorin, C.S.C. : "Chichetto is at his best when he sticks to narrrative. For example, the opening poem the book gives us a clear glimpse of the Sorin entourage riding north to Notre Dame from southern Indiana, November 16, 1842, the first day of the trip: Underbrush scrapes their rusty coach. The wheels keep turning, scabbed with ice. The ox-drawn cart seems overloaded On a road un-helped by light. The words have been carefully chosen to create a precise picture of the vehicle at odds with the elements. 'Scabbed with ice' is a fresh way of seeing the build-up of ice on wheels; it carries a medicinal flavor of disease, making the road more enemy than not. 'Un-helped by light' is a particularly felicitous combination in that it paints by negative what 'dark' could not do: we can see the cart lumbering along over a winter road even though we are told the light is of little use to the missionaries or to us. It is the eye for detail that makes Chichetto resonate, even when we are at a loss for meaning. For example, the poem 'Father Sorin's Journal: Cholera Plague, 1849' begins 'Brother rests in the shade, almost unstirring, nibbling on an apple./ Trees shift in the sunlight's shadowy veil.' The picture is delicate and fine, the detail of the apple a wonderful touch, all in a poem supposedly about cholera but which never mentions the disease (beyond the title of the poem) or even hints at it. The Brother under the tree watches birds, shoos a dog, lies down. The reader wonders at the match of title to poem, the riddle worth hours of discussion." George Klawitter, C.S.C., "Review of Homage to Father Edward Sorin, CSC," Holy Cross History, Vol. 11, No 2, 1993, 3-4. Of all the observers of Chichetto's earlier poetry, possibly Robert Peters, poet, critic, and professor emeritus (UCLA, Irvine), has been the most insightful, supportive, and nuanced in appraising it. For example, he praises him for "staging himself through Gilgamesh in Gilgamesh and Other Poems, notes the "beauty of the poems" in general, and singles out lines from his "favorite poem" ("Sugar Cane Fields in Peru"). Robert Peters, The Great American Bake-Off Series 3, (Metuchen, NJ and London: The Scarecrow Press, 1987), 30-31. In Homage to Father Edward Sorin, Peters quotes lines from 1 of the longer poems of the work, "Fr. Sorin and the Great Fire at Notre Dame, 1879" ("possibly the best"), noting the book as a whole "is an important contribution to the 'voice portrait' genre": He spits into some ashes, turns cinder over with his foot. He pushes some strands of hair from his forehead, then brushes his shoulder. He reaches into the debris for an old door knob, then motionless stands over the door in black silence. Later he walks toward the lakes. He looks out over the plowlines and across the great silence of water. "The sky of Indiana still stirs in the lakes," he thinks. "I can still labor." That night, throwing his cassock on a chair, he strips to his waist to wash. Robert Peters, "Voice Portrait," 1. 3 volumes of Chichetto's epic poem, The Dream of Norumbega, are out in paperback. Recognition Chichetto has received numerous benefits and awards, including two NEA and three NEH grants. He is listed in the International Who's Who of Authors (Routledge), Directory of American Scholars, Mass Foundation for Humanities Scholars, and Contemporary Authors Series, among others.Fr. James W. Chichetto, C.S.C., Stonehill College. Web, June 1, 2014. Publications Poetry *''Stones: A litany''. Boston: Night House, 1980.Stones: A litany, Quill & Brush. Web, Sep. 7, 2015. ISBN 0-939622-06-8 *''Gilgamesh, Book 2, Chapter 1, and other poems''. Four Zoas Night House, 1983. ISBN 0-939622-38-6 w\ *''Homage to Father Edward Sorin''. North Easton, MA: Connecticut Poetry Review Press, 1992; Stonington, CT: Connecticut Poetry Review Press, 1998. ISBN 0-9618657-4-1 *''The Dream of Norumbega: An epic poem on the United States of America''. (3 volumes), Stonington, CT: Saybrook House of the Connecticut Poetry Review Press. **''Book I'', 2000. **''Book II'', 2005. **''Book III'', 2008. *''Reckoning Genocide: Poems on Native Americans''. Morristown, TN: Indian Heritage Council, 2002. ISBN 1-884710-34-4 Edited *''Victims. New Haven, CT: Connecticut Poetry Review Press, 1987. ''Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.Search results = au:James William Chichetto, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, June 1, 2014. See also * List of U.S. poets References External Links ;Books *James William Chichetto at Amazon.com * James William Chichetto book list at Ranker ;About *James William Chichetto at Poets & Writers *Father James W. Chichetto, C.S.C. faculty profile at Stonehill College. Category:1941 births Category:American poets Category:Congregation of Holy Cross Category:Living people Category:The Catholic University of America alumni Category:University of Chicago alumni Category:Wesleyan University alumni Category:20th-century poets Category:21st-century poets Category:English-language poets Category:Poets Category:American academics